Hurt: A Novel (Solitary Tales Series) (6 page)

15. A Little Guidance

“Okay, so Chris Buckwheat.”

“Buckley,” I tell Mr. Taggart quickly.

It reminds me of something my skinheaded friend Brick from summer school might say, but that’s just to joke around. Mr. Taggart doesn’t joke. He’s the butt of jokes.

He nods and looks through the files on his desk. This office is more like a closet where people just toss in random folders and garbage. When I first heard I was supposed to meet with him today, I thought there was a mistake.

“I had Ms. Tooney last year.”

“Yeah, well, things change. Here it is.”

I haven’t seen Mr. Taggart since summer school, where I met Lily and the rest of the gang. I miss those carefree days, when this guy across from me would stroll in with his shirt half untucked and his hair (what little he has) half combed and make a halfhearted effort at teaching.

Staring at his unshaven face and glassy eyes, I see nothing much has changed.

“So have you taken your ACT or SAT tests?”

I shake my head.

“Applied to any schools?”

Once again, I shake my head.

Mr. Taggart looks at the few things in my folder. It’s probably as pitiful as this blank vanilla office.

“So are you planning on going to college?” he asks me.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Kinda late to be guessing. You better get on it. And I’ll tell you this—just ’cause they got me being a guidance counselor this year doesn’t mean I’ll be riding your butt. I don’t care. Really. Kids these days are graduating with honors from amazing universities, and they still end up going back home to live with Mommy and Daddy. It’s a different world out there. Nobody is looking out for you.”

“That’s truly inspiring,” I say with a totally straight face.

Mr. Taggart looks at me for a second, a scowl on his face. Then he realizes I’m joking and starts to chuckle.

“That’s a good one.”

“I try,” I say.

“You were in summer school, right? The session with the hottie?”

“I think her name was Lily, not hottie.”

He already looks bored and ready to go back to doing the nothing he was doing when I came in.

“Look, Buck
ley
—you better get on this college thing.”

“I always figured I’d go somewhere in Illinois.”

“You gotta apply to those too.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“What’s your grand plan for life?”

I want to live past graduation day and Memorial Day and then get far away from here.

“I don’t know. Maybe be in a band.”

“Play any instruments? Sing?”

I shake my head.

“Maybe you want to start there,” he tells me in a deadpan way.

I kinda got other things going on.

“Get on one of those tests, and pick out some schools. Hey—junior colleges aren’t bad. I went to one.”

I feign a smile and nod.

I leave his office feeling inspired to take on the world.

16. Friday Night

My date with Kelsey is going to have to wait until tomorrow since she’s doing something with her parents at their church. I’m not sure what kind of thing people do at church on a Friday night, but I didn’t ask. Asking might mean she’d invite me, and I just—I’m not ready for that.

Not just yet.

I feel tired and restless and bored and anxious in this empty cabin.

For some reason, I’m thinking about my age.

Seventeen is not thirteen, but it sure isn’t twenty-seven. It is almost. It is not quite there. It is about time and anxious to move on and does anyone care?

It’s big and tall but not enough to be legal or official.

Seventeen is so close but not just yet.

Not just yet.

I listen to music on my headphones and scan the Internet, trying not to think of my age. Trying not to think of my fate. Trying not to think, but letting others think for me. To talk for me. To show for me. To act out for me.

I’ve got a million choices at my fingertips, and it feels good.

My room feels cold, but I turn up the volume on my headset, and the cold seems to stay away.

My room feels lonely, but I scan YouTube and find something to make me feel surrounded and funny.

Maybe others watch, but I don’t care. I don’t feel special, and I don’t feel like trying. Not tonight.

The empty downstairs doesn’t echo when I’m listening to stuff I’ve downloaded for free. I’m watching strangers doing strange things. The world is strange, and I’m only seventeen, wondering if it’s going to get stranger. How could it? How could it ever?

The beats bounce, and I try to keep up because if I do I won’t think of everything else.

They’ll be distant memories if the volume gets turned up loud enough.

They’ll be forgotten until tomorrow morning when the cold rips the blanket off of me and laughs.

I can’t see God being happy with all of us. Not just me and not just this town, but everything and everyone. Doing their own thing in their own way.

The news talks about all the messes in our country and everywhere else, and it makes me think that God finally said, “Do it your own way.”

I tried and I failed. Miserably.

But I don’t feel like reading the Bible. I feel like listening to music.

I don’t feel like praying. I feel like posting something online.

Could it really be that strong, the wind blowing against this cabin, rattling the walls and the floor?

Is it trying to tell me something?

I look at the sleeping figure of my dog and wish I could trade places. Sometimes.

The peaceful sleep she seems to have.

I’d love a little of that.

I’d love a little peace.

But the beats go on, and I close my eyes and I see Jocelyn avoiding me and Lily teasing me and Poe angry at me and Kelsey blushing around me.

Will the songs always remind me, and if so, will I ever be able to change the tracks?

Maybe I need a new genre, a new playlist.

I don’t need the synths anymore. I need an … an accordion. Yes, an accordion. An accordion won’t remind me.

But I listen to the drum machines and the synthesizers, and I remember.

The night washes the house with black and forgets to dry it off, leaving it shivering and cold and needing a nice warm blanket.

Seventeen-year-olds shouldn’t be thinking this way, but yeah, I guess Staunch and Marsh were right. I’ve never been a typical kid.

Then again, does any kid ever feel typical?

Really?

17. Someone Else’s Story

“So have you decided what you’re going to do about college?”

We’re halfway through our meal at one of those sandwich and soup places in the Asheville mall. I’m glad that Kelsey suggested coming here—not that there were many options. There’s nothing much to do in Solitary, unless we stayed at her house and rented a movie. Instead, we’re going to see the latest picture starring Ryan Gosling.

“It seems like everybody is asking that lately,” I tell her.

“It is January, you know.”

“Maybe I won’t go to college. Maybe I’ll just get on my bike and drive across the country.”

“And who’s going to pay for your gas? And food?”

“Yeah, yeah. Life would be a lot better if we didn’t have to think about money.”

“You don’t want to wait until it’s too late.”

Kelsey is a rule-keeper. Someone gives a rule, and Kelsey keeps it. I, on the other hand, don’t like rules. Or deadlines. Or stuff that others tell me I should do.

That’s called stubborn.

“You sound like Mr. Taggart.”

“Why?”

I tell her about getting him as a guidance counselor, and Kelsey can only laugh.

“I’m surprised he’s still at school. I heard he got kicked out of coaching football for getting in a fight with a kid from another school. Not another coach, but a kid.”

“Glad I’m getting ‘guidance’ from him.”

I talk a little about summer school, then realize where that’s heading. I stop because I don’t want Lily to come up.

“I might follow you back to Chicago,” I tell her, switching subjects.

“You’re going to go to Covenant?”

“I don’t think I have the grades to get in there. And it’s probably too expensive.”

“Then where?”

“Mr. Taggart is suggesting a junior college. Guess he’s dreaming big for me. I don’t know. At this point I don’t really care, you know? I just want to get away from Solitary.”

As I take my last bite of my sandwich I see a tall guy, in his thirties maybe, by himself sipping a drink and reading a magazine. He’s sitting at a table nearby, facing me. Kelsey can’t see him.

I didn’t see him sit down, but I notice him now.

He glances up and looks at me. Then he smiles.

And I know.

He’s not just some random guy sitting there.

This guy is spying on me. Or not even “spying,” because it’s too obvious and he doesn’t care.

He’s keeping tabs on me.

That’s just your imagination.

When I look back at him, he’s reading his magazine.

“Chris?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s wrong?”

I look at Kelsey and shake my head. “Nothing.”

“You look—-different.”

“I do?”

“You sure you’re okay?”

I look at her, and then it comes back to me. I can’t help the memories.

Rushing to Jocelyn, only to find her dead with her throat slit and her blood dripping out …

I close my eyes and wipe them, but I can’t wipe the pain away.

Seeing Lily’s body not far from mine in the woods at the bottom of the hill through the cracked windshield as I slowly fade in and out and bleed to death myself …

“Chris?”

“Yeah, sorry. I just have a headache.”

“I’m sorry.”

I look at her, confused. “What? You’re sorry?”

“For bringing up college and the future.”

I shake my head. “That’s not why I have the headache.”

My eyes go back to the table where the guy is sitting. He looks like he’s content to stay as long as necessary.

“We don’t have to see a movie.”

“No,” I tell her. “I want to go.”

I want a break. A little relief. To sit in a dark room and see someone else’s story and know that someone is next to me in the dark, watching the same story.

I’m tired of being alone. I know Mom and Dad had their issues and they couldn’t work things out, but I know that two will always be better than one. Especially around here.

Eventually we stand and leave the table. As we do, I look at the man.

He grins at me as if sizing me up.

I don’t look away.

I don’t smile a polite smile. Instead, I grit my teeth and toughen up my eyes and know that this is what’s ahead.

I’m standing in between this stranger and Kelsey, and that’s what I’m going to continue to do.

They don’t frighten me anymore.

Even if they should.

18. Ryan Gosling

Kelsey lets me drive her car back to my house just to let me feel a little more manly. I mean—we just spent two hours watching Ryan Gosling be a macho man and woo the ladies and be tough but tender, so I need a little help.

Driving back to my cabin, I imagine for the moment that I’m Gosling and this is my woman. Not my girl but my lady. That we’re older and that we can do anything we want and that I’m her lover and protector.

It’s nice making up things.

I pull the car around in my driveway and think about the empty house in front of us. But then I ditch that thought. Because it’s too soon and because it’s Kelsey and because of what happened when I last had those empty-cabin-all-to-myself thoughts.

The engine is running and the car is in neutral and I can see those big blue eyes looking at me in the semi-darkness.

“This was fun,” I say.

But that’s Buckley talking, not Gosling. He would never say something so lame.

“You can, uh, come in for a while if you want, you know?” I say.

Still far to go to be Gosling, buddy.

“I better go.”

She doesn’t know your cabin is empty anyway, remember?
She thinks your mom is here.

I nod and start to say something very Buckley-esque, and then Kelsey moves over and kisses me.

It’s a very non-Kelsey-like kiss.

But as we embrace for I don’t know and don’t care how long, I think another thought.

Maybe this is a Kelsey kiss that nobody else except me knows about.

And I don’t have to be Ryan Gosling to get a kiss like that.

She finally moves and smiles and then waits.

I guess there’s nothing left to say because she just said this.

I have a lot more I want to say and a lot more I want to do, but I climb out of the car and head back up to the empty cabin.

Knowing I’ll dream of her.

I turn and watch her car pull away in the darkness. Then something in me tears away.

I think of the tossed car off the side of the road like a scrap of garbage that ended up killing Lily.

I stop breathing for a moment.

Who knows who’s watching me now? Or following Kelsey back home?

I can’t be with her every moment. I can’t fully protect her.

“God protect her,” I say out loud.

That’s all I can do. Even if I still don’t really know if that’s doing anything.

19. The Wizard of Oz

I’m here because of Kelsey.

And, I guess, because this is the first step to the final page. The big thing that’s supposed to be on the horizon. The thing that’s supposed to happen that I’m a part of—that I’m needed for—that all this fuss has been about.

So I’m starting at the doorway to New Beginnings Church. I walk inside, hoping that Pastor Marsh sees me. I want him to think that I’m going along with the plan. And that as long as I do what they tell me to do, they’ll leave my mom and Kelsey and anybody else I care for alone.

That’s the plan.

I remember that storage room downstairs and still want to know what’s up with that coffin. And the mannequin I saw.

This makes me think of chapstick guy from the other afternoon. The man who claimed to be into “dark arts,” Mr. Mannequin himself.

Maybe I don’t need to know any more about those things.

“Christopher.”

Anytime someone calls me that, I want to run and hide. My father used to say that when he had to discipline me. Every teacher who announced that I was new called me that.

Pastor Marsh stands there by the doorway to the sanctuary as if he wants to give me a hug.

“Good to see you.”

I nod as I walk by and shake his hand.

Even his hand feels weak and dirty.

“Stick around so I can talk with you after the service,” he says. Then he smiles and adds, “Please.”

Well, fine, now that you said please and happen to be keeping my mom in some loony bin.

I nod again and find a seat.

I don’t want to be here.

My slogan for the last sixteen months.

There is nothing strange that Pastor Marsh says during his nice little sermon. At no point does he raise up his hands and say “Slay the beast!” or something weird like that.

No.

But I’ve been to churches before so I know. This message really isn’t much of a sermon. It’s more like some self-help session about feeling good and believing in yourself.

Newsflash, Marsh: I tried to do that, and it doesn’t work.

He’d tell me that I don’t know a thing because I’m only a teenager.

But deep down inside I feel like I do know a few things. And here, in this seat, I realize that this is just a building with people in it. It’s no more of a church than our high school or my cabin or that place with the creepy stones where Jocelyn died.

Pastor Marsh never reads a Bible verse. He refers to a verse here and there—a psalm or something like that—but he never talks about the Bible. And he never, ever mentions Jesus Christ.

I think a bomb would go off if he did.

Even the prayers are strange, because he prays them with his eyes open. I guess mine are open too, since I spot him looking out. But it’s like the president’s speech on national television that’s annoying because it’s interrupting
Survivor
. It’s well spoken, but I wonder if there’s any kind of meaning behind it.

“I remember your uncle riding that motorcycle around town,” Marsh says to me in a way that looks as if he just swallowed a worm.

We’re sitting in Brennan’s with drinks in front of us waiting for our lunch. I did as he asked and waited for him after the service. Then I did as he asked and followed him into town, and he led me in here.

I get the idea that he’s trying to remind me of Mom. That he’s rubbing it in my face. I haven’t brought her up, but then again I don’t need to. She’s one of those elephants in the room. Like Jocelyn. Like Marsh Falls. Like everything.

“You haven’t seen Robert lately, have you?”

I shake my head and try my best to act casual. I don’t think Marsh can read minds, but I know he’s smart enough to be able to detect teens who haven’t mastered lying yet.

“He really thought he was something, in the beginning. When he came back and started snooping around, not having a clue. I have to admit—you both share the same DNA. Getting involved with the wrong lady at the wrong time. Only for your uncle it was a bit more serious, since that particular lady was married.”

I don’t want to say anything like
I know
or ask him how he found out. I can feel myself blushing for some reason.

“I really wanted to make him pay,” Marsh says in a distant sort of way that seems like someone telling a story around a campfire. “But I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me. In the end it didn’t matter. You both share the same DNA, except for one thing, Chris. You are a brave soul. Your uncle is a coward. A wife-stealer and a coward.”

I sip my Coke. Is this what he wanted to talk to me about?

Did they hear Uncle Robert at the cabin? Do they care that he’s back?

“Those two deserve each other, if you want to be honest. You’ve seen
The Wizard of Oz
, haven’t you? Your uncle is the lion looking for courage. Heidi—well, she’s the tin man looking for a heart.”

He smiles, then reaches over and grabs my wrist and holds it firmly.

Too bad Mom’s not around to come here and see this and take a spatula to his face.

“So, Chris, listen to me. Okay? You listening good?”

I nod as he lets my hand go.

“Are you going to be the scarecrow who’s looking for a brain? I really hope not, because I know you’re smart. So you listen. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re falling for another pretty little girl who doesn’t belong in your life. You have to learn the hard way. Maybe it will be easy because she’ll move off and leave you, and it will be for the better. It doesn’t matter if your uncle is around or not. What matters is that you do exactly as you’re told from here on out.”

“I know. Staunch made that clear.”

“I’m just here to help,” Marsh tells me for the one hundredth time.

“Yeah, that really felt like helping.”

“Here’s the picture, Chris. Let me paint it to you crystal clear.”

I nod as his eyes narrow behind those glasses. He scans the room, then reaches over and takes a white napkin that my drink was supposed to be sitting on. He opens it up and then puts his palm on it.

“This is what I used to put my faith in. This was my God. White, wholesome, pure. Like the sun and the stars. That’s what I believed, or thought I believed. Did I believe in the Devil and evil and hell? No. Others around me did, but I didn’t. I studied the Bible, but many of those stories were simply fairy tales to me. I could believe in a God, but I couldn’t believe in the other stuff. Then I realized one day that it was the other way around. That from the very beginning of my miserable life all I’d ever—ever—been able to see were the darkness and the evil. I realized that the Devil was very real and that hell didn’t start when you died, but it started when you were here on earth. For some, like me, it started during the teen years.”

This is the most passionate he’s sounded all day long.

It scares me. A lot.

“I grew to realize that maybe God was there, that maybe He was all those things I once thought, but I also realized that He was long gone. If He ever was there, He’s not anymore.”

Marsh picks up the napkin and slowly rips it in half. Then rips it in half again. Then keeps doing that until he takes it and crunches it in his fist.

“And I realized what Staunch has said and what this place has proven and what history has really taught us: that evil has a power, and that power is a wonderful thing. I no longer questioned evil and its place. Nor did I have any problems believing in the supernatural. But I finally realized my place. Because I wasn’t the lion, Chris—I had the guts to admit it to myself and the rest of my world. I wasn’t the tin man, because I’ve always had a beating heart more than most. And I sure wasn’t the scarecrow. I knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I was smart enough to finally embrace the path before me. It’s the only path, really. That’s what you have to realize. Because as I said, you, Chris, are different. You’re special. I’m just crumbs.”

He lets go of the wadded-up ball of paper scraps.

“You can have anything you want. There are things that you’re too young to even know that you want. You will have a long life before you. And you won’t fear anything, not the sunset or the sunrise or your last breath. Because you’ll know that in the end it doesn’t really matter.”

Marsh pauses, his eyes narrowing, his face growing dim. “Nobody’s on the other line, Chris. He left a long time ago.”

The server comes with our plates of food, and I see my hamburger and suddenly feel a bit nauseous. It takes everything in me to eat, but I do it quickly because I have no idea what to say.

Marsh grins, takes one of my fries since he is having a salad, eats it, and then laughs.

“Okay, fine, I take it back. You can’t have everything. When you get to my age, you’ll have to cut back, unless you want to be packing on the pounds. But there again, you’re taller than I am. It’s just unfair, everything you’ve been given. Just completely unfair.”

He takes another fry.

I want to dump the whole plate over his head and leave.

“There will be official things coming up, Chris,” Marsh says after a long and awkward silence. “Rituals. Things that I can’t say I care for, but that have been handed down for generations. All I did was have the sense to bring them back. Not because I believe in them, not really. They’re all for show. Like a royal wedding. You saw that, right? Did you?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say.

“For a second I was wondering if you’d lost your voice. Do you know someone said that the royal wedding cost around sixty million? When people are dying from not having food and water in this world. When the economy is taking a dive and people are looking for work. But they had to do it. Why? ’Cause it was symbolic. It was all for show. And I thought—when I finally came back here after getting my education and getting some experience—I thought I’d come back here to try and make a name for myself. But I wasn’t a Kinner. I was no Chris Buckley. But I could read and discover the history of this place. So that’s what I brought.”

“The rituals?”

Marsh nods.

“Staunch, of course, does whatever Kinner wants, but I was able to convince the old man to start these again. And somehow it worked.”

He looks at me as the realization dawns on me.

This is the man who killed Jocelyn.

“All I wanted to do was follow the yellow brick road. I discovered that the old man behind the mask—well, he’s the real deal, and you don’t mess with him. But his time is short, and there needs to be someone new. Someone in the lineage. The wonderful, glorious family line.”

Marsh curses, then takes another bite of his salad.

“But when the wizard is gone, Chris, that will just leave us. Staunch, too, but—well, that story is for another day. But there’ll just be the two of us. And I can help you out. I can worry about things you won’t have to worry about. All we have to do is play their game and go through the rituals and say what we believe, and that will be all. Got it?”

I look at Jeremiah Marsh’s face, which I’ve grown to hate.

“Got it?” he asks again.

“Yeah. Got it.”

I wonder if he can read my mind now.

I’m going to kill you, buddy. This time I’m going to wound you and make sure that you die.

If he wants to know who I am, I’ll call myself Dorothy.

And I’ll call him the Wicked Witch. Either of the East or the West.

Whichever one Dorothy ends up killing.